In the early season at Redwood Acres Raceway, Mic Moulton knows the feeling.

Going into Saturday night's race, he was leading the pack by just one point.

On May 25, Moulton edged Luke Hall by less than half a second to gain the narrow lead with the help of his good luck charm — his 1-year-old son, Jack.

"He's absolutely my good luck charm," Moulton said about his son attending his first-ever race.

After coming in second place on May 17, Jack gave Moulton the boost he needed to get the upper hand over Hall.

The 37-year-old Moulton has been racing for the past 20 years, but started hanging around Redwood Acres when he was a toddler, just like his own son.

"I loved racing and watching," Moulton said. "It was just always something that I wanted to do. My parents said as soon as I could talk, I was talking about racing cars."

Moulton's career on the track started at Eureka High School when he and some of his fellow classmates built a car in their sophomore year. In their junior year, they won a championship at Redwood Acres.

Since then, he's raced all over in the Northwest, but returned to Eureka in 2010.

After winning a championship in his first year back, he started driving his current car for a few races last season.

Previously labeled as the No. 01 car, the No. 10 late model car that Moulton steers around the track has some history.

"This was Larry Pries' car, who was a long time driver here. He was my good friend," Moulton said. "They let it sit for a couple years. A couple of people drove it, but I was the lucky one that got to keep driving it."

Pries, who died in August of 2011, had been racing since the 60s. He was still racing at the age of 72 and was leading the Sportsman class that season.

The car is owned by Moulton's crew chief Bill Walters and his wife Nicole.

Moulton said he owes a lot of his success to both the car and his crew chief.

"It's a really good car, a really good crew chief," Moulton said. "I'm really, really lucky to have such a great crew chief and crew. I know when they do something that I know it's done, and it's done right. I have so much confidence in them. I can just put that out of my mind and just do my job."

Moulton had to let his crew work after the last heat as his power-steering fluid started to leak.

But he and his car were ready to go for the feature race, where Hall was determined to redeem himself for last week's second-place finish.

In last night's third race of the season, Moulton lead the way for 21 of 35 laps.

Hall came around the corner, and took the inside lane and the lead with just 13 laps to go. Moulton tried to make a move in the 34th lap, but couldn't get past the No. 36 car.

"The cars are pretty close right now," Moulton said, "we just have to keep doing right and not make too many mistakes."

Although Moulton finished in second place, he was adamant on the outcome for the season.

"We're going to win the championship," Moulton said.

But he knows there's a lot of strategy involved, and he knows there's going to be someone gunning for him.

"They always say in racing that it's the third car, the third driver and the third luck," Moulton said. "And it's true, anything can happen. You just try to be smart and make good decisions and not get too overanxious but then again, you can't be too patient."